Aphrodite's Smile

by Stuart Harrison

  Once I had towelled off I decided to drive up to Stavros and find somewhere I could buy a beer and sit in the shade. At a junction just back from the beach I checked carefully for traffic, wary of the erratic driving habits of the locals. Fifty yards away a figure was squatting beside a scooter stopped at the side of the road. I almost drove on but then she stood up and I realised that it was Alex.

  She looked around when she heard the Jeep approaching, but she didn’t realise who it was until I stopped.

  ‘Hello again,’ I said.

  She smiled uncertainly. ‘Hello.’

  ‘How are you feeling today?’

  ‘Fine. I slept late.’

  ‘I went to the place where you’re staying earlier. I got your note.’

  She gestured to the scooter. ‘I wanted to get out and take a look around so I hired this. I couldn’t face being in my room all day.’

  I looked at the scooter. ‘Is there a problem?’

  In a gesture of frustration she pushed a damp strand of dark blonde hair back from her forehead. ‘Yes, actually. It won’t go.’

  In the light of day she looked a lot better than when I had last seen her. The dark smudges beneath her eyes had already begun to fade. I was struck again by the colour of her eyes. Now that they weren’t reddened and puffy, the full effect of them was even more pronounced. Their unusual paleness somehow added to her vulnerability. It was as if I could look right inside her. She was, I thought, quite beautiful. But the overriding emotion I felt was one of protectiveness as I had when I had sat watching her sleep. Tearing my gaze away I bent down to have a look at the engine, checking that the lead and plug were secure, then opening the fuel tank.

  ‘I filled it before I left Vathy,’ she commented drolly. I smiled and gave up pretending that I knew what I was doing.

  ‘The best thing would be to leave it here. I’ll give you a lift back to the place where you hired it and they can come and pick it up.’

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’ She sounded disappointed and glanced toward the hills across the bay.

  ‘Is that where you were going?’

  ‘Yes. There’s a village I wanted to see.’ She pointed to a towering hill where the hazy outline of a few buildings was visible perched precariously on the steep upper slopes. ‘But it doesn’t matter. I can go another time.’

  ‘I could drive you there if you like,’ I offered.

  ‘I didn’t mean to suggest …’

  ‘Suggest what?’

  ‘I mean you’ve done enough for me already,’ she said awkwardly. ‘Look, about last night. I feel terrible about it. I mean I feel like an idiot.’

  ‘You shouldn’t,’ I said. ‘I’m just glad that I was there.’

  ‘I haven’t even thanked you have I?’

  ‘Yes you have. Last night.’

  ‘Did I? I don’t remember much to be honest. Anyway I really appreciate what you did. I don’t know what came over me. I’d had a few drinks. Actually more than a few. I don’t think they mixed well with those pills I took.’ She shook her head in disbelief at her own actions. ‘I just felt this black mood sink over me. I couldn’t shake it off.’

  ‘At least you seem better today.’

  ‘I am. Much better.’ She looked at me intently, almost beseechingly. ‘I didn’t really mean to kill myself you know. I mean I don’t know what I was doing. But it wasn’t that.’

  ‘Like you said, it was probably the pills. If I were you I’d get rid of them.’

  She smiled gratefully. ‘I already did.’

  I looked back towards the village on the distant hillside. I wanted to ask what had brought her to Ithaca and why she had been drinking alone and taking pills to help her sleep, but I thought if she wanted to tell me she would. ‘So, how about that lift? I’ll take you up there if you like.’

  She hesitated. ‘I don’t think there’s much to see,’ she warned.

  ‘That’s OK, I haven’t got anything else to do. Besides there are probably great views from up there.’

  I still sensed a residue of uncertainty in her, but then she suddenly smiled, whatever doubts she had melting away. ‘Well, if you’re sure, that would be great. Thanks.’

  It turned out the village was called Exoghi and the road that led to it ascended in a series of tight switchback curves. At times the drop to Polis Bay far below was perilously close to the wheels, and the Jeep’s engine, stuck in first and second gear the entire way up, howled in protest. Now and then I glanced at Alex and though she smiled when our eyes met, most of the time she was preoccupied with her thoughts. Despite everything she’d said earlier I could sense that her assurances were a thin veneer to mask whatever was troubling her. As we got closer to the village however, she began to take a keen interest in it, craning her neck for a better view as we glimpsed the tower of a church among some cypress trees.

  When we arrived it turned out there was a small parking area beside the church where I pulled over. I’d been right about the views. We could see for miles. To the east was a broad fertile valley where olive and fruit trees grew and beyond the coast, the blue-grey shapes of scattered islands were visible in the far distance. To the west across the strait the towering coastline of Kephalonia seemed close enough to touch.

  It was very quiet and there was a curious stillness about the place that heightened its distinct feeling of isolation. ‘It looks deserted,’ I commented.

  ‘I think a lot of the houses are owned by people who come here for the summer,’ Alex said. ‘I read somewhere that only two families live here all year round.’

  She studied the village intently as if comparing it to some mental image she had, perhaps from a guidebook. She wanted to look around, so we left the Jeep and went on foot. We walked past houses that overlooked the roofs of the ones below. Most were small, simply-built stone affairs with shuttered windows that had probably stood there for generations, but one or two had been built in recent times. One we saw even had a pool. Alleyways and sets of steps connected the streets, which was really a single road that ran back and forth through the village. Behind stone walls there were overgrown gardens and from one the familiar smell of wild mint and thyme sweetened the musty stench of something long dead. Weeds pushed through the cracks between the uneven paving slabs. The only sign of life we saw was a cat that regarded us suspiciously, frozen in surprise on a wall, as startled by us as we were by it.

  Beyond the houses we came to a sign that indicated the way to a monastery at the summit of the hill. Alex frowned and looked back the way we’d come.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘To be honest I’m looking for something,’ she admitted. ‘A house. Or what’s left of one anyway. That’s why I wanted to come here. My grandmother was born in this village.’

  I recalled that when I first saw Alex I’d mistaken her for a local, which made sense now. As we began to retrace our steps she told me a little about herself. She had grown up in Hertfordshire where she had attended a private girls’ school. Her mother was a doctor and her father a barrister working in London. It was her maternal grandmother who came from Ithaca, though she had lived much of her life in England until she had died the previous year.

  ‘It wasn’t until then that I realised how little I knew about her,’ Alex said. ‘I knew she was Greek of course, but I didn’t know where she was from exactly. It’s funny how you think you know somebody, and then suddenly you find that you really don’t at all. And then it’s too late.’ She shrugged philosophically. ‘And now here I am.’

  We had reached an alleyway that we’d missed earlier. It ran between two houses, but it was overgrown with wild oak. Beneath our feet what had once been a paved path had succumbed to nature.

  ‘Let’s try this way,’ Alex suggested.

  We emerged into a stand of gnarled and long-neglected olive trees beyond which stood the ruins of a cottage. The roof had gone and the walls had partly collapsed. It stood in an overgrown clearing. Sunlight splashed on the ruins, but instea
d of cheering them it somehow emphasised the emptiness of the windows, the shadowed spaces inside. There was an odd atmosphere about the place. I had the feeling that nobody had been there for a long time, but also that it still resonated with the lives of those who had once lived there. It was the sort of place that gives credence to the idea of the existence of ghosts.

  ‘Is this it do you think?’ I asked Alex.

  ‘I think so.’

  She seemed absorbed with whatever private thoughts the place evoked in her and, sensing that she wanted to be alone, I wandered around to the back where I found what had once been a terrace. A rusted pole protruded from the ground at an angle – what remained of a trellis to support a grapevine. On the hillside, olive trees grew in ranks, the stone retaining walls badly in need of repair, the terraces themselves heavily overgrown and neglected.

  Inside the ruin itself there was nothing to see except some faded graffiti painted on a wall. Overall there was an air of desolation about the place. A sort of heavy silence in the air.

  A sound from behind startled me, but when I turned it was only Alex. I smiled self-consciously, my heart thumping. ‘I didn’t hear you.’

  ‘Sorry. There’s a strange feeling here isn’t there?’

  ‘Yes,’ I admitted, glad that I wasn’t alone in my perception. ‘You said this is where your grandmother was born?’

  ‘My mother too actually, though she was only a baby when Nana took her to England.’ Alex hesitated and I had the distinct impression that she wasn’t sure if she wanted to share this with me. Then she said, ‘Have you ever felt that you don’t really know who you are?’

  It was an odd question, but in a way I thought perhaps I knew what she meant. ‘When I was young I was sent to boarding school,’ I told her. ‘I never felt as if I belonged. I didn’t know what I was doing there.’

  ‘Yes, that’s it isn’t it? When everything we’re used to changes and suddenly we’re not sure where we fit in?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘When I was growing up I never questioned anything. I think it’s incredible really when I look back on it, but my brother and sister didn’t either. I suppose my parents are quite well off. I went to a good school. There was pony club, a house in the country, all that sort of thing. The only thing that was out of place was my Nana. She lived in this little flat in North London where my mother grew up. She was quite happy there. She didn’t want to move because her friends and everyone she knew were all there. All these Greek families. But the funny thing is I never heard her speak anything but English. Even though she had this terrible almost unintelligible accent. You’d think I might have wondered why.’

  ‘Maybe not. I think kids accept something if it’s always been that way.’

  ‘I suppose that’s it. It must be why I was never really curious about my grandfather. Nobody ever talked about him. I grew up knowing that he died a long time ago, but that was all. There were no photographs of him anywhere. Even my mother never mentioned him.’

  Alex looked around the inside of the ruined cottage. Her gaze settled on the faded graffiti. It was written in Greek so I had no idea what it meant. She dug in her pocket and found a pen and a notebook. ‘I want to know what it means,’ she said, copying it down as best she could.

  We went back outside and before we left Alex stopped to take another look at the ruin. Sunlight fell in shafts through the branches of the olive trees, splashing in pools on the dry earth below. My gaze wandered beyond the clearing to the tangled undergrowth where it was gloomy and shadowed. I glimpsed a movement that at first I took to be an animal or a bird, but when I looked more closely I was surprised to find that I was wrong.

  ‘We’ve got company.’ I nodded towards the old man who stood almost hidden back among the trees. He stared at us silently and though I couldn’t make out his features clearly I had a strong impression of dark eyes filled with malevolence. I could feel it pouring out of him, a black stain that soaked into the earth.

  ‘Kalimera,’ Alex called out. ‘Oreos keros.’

  The old man made no response. ‘Maybe we should leave,’ I suggested. ‘I don’t think he likes visitors.’

  We began to make our way back along the path. At the edge of the trees I looked back and he was still there, staring after us. I was slightly relieved when we emerged back onto the street. As we made our way to the Jeep I half expected to see him following us, so when a figure appeared from an alleyway some way in front I wasn’t surprised that it was him.

  ‘What do you think he wants?’ Alex asked.

  He stood by the side of the road watching as we approached.

  ‘He’s probably harmless. I expect he’s not used to seeing strangers around. Maybe he’s not quite all there.’

  His face was as wrinkled and brown as a walnut. He had to be seventy or eighty years old. The clothes he wore were rough and patched, encrusted with ancient dirt. But it was the intensity of his gaze that was unnerving. As we passed, I nodded to him but I don’t think he even noticed. His baleful glare was fastened exclusively on Alex. He muttered something under his breath. I couldn’t make out the words, but it sounded harsh and unfriendly.

  ‘Did you catch that?’ I asked.

  ‘My Greek isn’t very good.’ She looked shaken.

  He watched us until we reached the Jeep. He was the only living soul we had encountered in the entire village and, as we drove back down the hill, I was glad to put the place behind me.

  When we reached Polis Bay I suggested we stop for a drink. We sat at a table outside the bar on the beach and ordered beers and some bread and salad. Some fishermen were working on a boat tied up to the wharf, and two young children were playing in the water. It was all very normal and reassuring.

  ‘That old man, he was looking at me wasn’t he?’ Alex asked. I admitted that it had appeared that way. She searched through her bag until she found what looked like a diary. From inside the back cover she took out some photographs and handed one to me. It was of an old woman with iron-grey hair.

  ‘My grandmother. It was taken just before she became ill.’

  Despite the difference in their ages the resemblance was clear, especially since they both shared the same strikingly pale green eyes. She handed me another picture, this one much older and taken in black-and-white. The image wasn’t as clear, but the resemblance was even more obvious.

  ‘That was taken when she was a year or two older than I am now. I wonder if that old man mistook me for Nana.’

  I supposed it was possible. ‘You think he might have known her?’

  ‘Perhaps. She left here after the Second World War. I never knew that until she was moved to a hospice for the last few months before she died. She started telling me stories about the village where she grew up. I’d never heard any of it before. She talked about her parents and about her brother who I never even knew existed. It was incredible. She was dying and I suddenly realised I didn’t know anything about her.’

  ‘Is that why you came to Ithaca?’

  Alex hesitated. ‘Partly.’ I had the feeling she was trying to decide how much to reveal of herself. ‘I wanted to know more about her life. And about my grandfather.’

  ‘Was he from here as well?’

  She shook her head. ‘You remember I said earlier that nobody ever talked about him? The first time I heard him mentioned was when Nana was dying. I went to see her one evening. They were giving her a lot of morphine. I think she was a bit confused. She seemed to think she was back here again and she talked about this man that she fell in love with. His name was Stefan.’

  ‘Stefan? That’s German isn’t it?’

  She nodded. ‘I didn’t find out any more until after she died. When I asked my mother she told me that her father was a German soldier. That’s why nobody ever talked about him. When Nana left Ithaca she was pregnant. Her family name was Zannas. They had lived here for generations, but after the war, the family disowned her and forced her to leave. They said she was a tr
aitor.’

  I began to understand what Alex had meant when she had talked earlier about not knowing who she was, and why she’d wondered if the old man in the village had recognised her. ‘Do you know what happened to your grandfather?’

  ‘No. That’s partly why I’m here. My mother told me that she went through a phase once of wanting to find out everything she could about him. Even if he was dead, she thought he must have family. She wondered if she had half-brothers and sisters somewhere. She was an only child, so I suppose it was important to her. For a long time Nana wouldn’t tell her, but in the end she gave in. I think she was afraid that if she didn’t my mother would find out some other way, which would have been worse.’

  ‘Because he was an enemy soldier?’

  ‘Not just that. There was more to it. Have you noticed how many churches there are here?’

  I said that I had. ‘The Orthodox Church is still a big part of life for many Greeks. Especially in places like Ithaca.’

  ‘Nana went to one in North London all her life. Her flat was full of those little icons of the saints. You see them all over the place here. When she grew up, her life was dominated by her family and by the church. In those days it was unthinkable for a girl to get pregnant before she was married. She told my mother that she was raped. I don’t think she actually used that term, but it’s what she meant.’

  ‘But didn’t you say she told you she was in love with this soldier?’

  ‘Yes. I think she might have told my mother she was raped to put her off looking for his family.’

  ‘That’s a hell of a thing to say if it wasn’t true isn’t it?’